Alexander : a history of the origin and growth of the art of war from ...

510 INDIA.got so near, he was bound to tread its sacred soil. He haddiscovered by good fortune, added to his native keenness, thebest gate through the protecting mountain chain from Persiato the Indian plains, viz., the roadbed of the river Cophen,which plows between walls of rock through a narrow precijjitousvalley, from the parched uplands of Central Asia tothe smiling levels of India. As Strabo expresses it, Alexanderdiscovered India, and in view of the ignorance of geographyat that day, the phrase is not inappropriate. At theoutlet of the Cophen valley, the Five Rivers make a freshboundary to the interior, and beyond them, Alexander knew,lay the head waters of the Ganges, the holy stream of India.Of the Ganges, Alexander had no doubt heard more than ofany other feature of the country, and he believed that hecould easily reach this river, which, as he heard, would conducthim to the great ocean, the confines of the world.The Aryans had wandered from the upland plains, wherethey originated, through this very pass. Some had gone assome no farther than the Cophen valley.far as the Ganges ;When Assyria grew strong, she conquered the Aryan uplands,still inhabited by a part of the race, but " Semiramissaw," it is related, " the camels of the Western steppes flyfrom before the elephants of the Indian East at the bridgeover the Indus." The Medes came after the Assyrians, thenthe Persians. Cyrus claimed fealty from Gandara ; Darius senta Greek to the Indus, who sailed down the river to the sea,and then returned through the Arabian Gulf. A few Indiansserved at Gaugamela under Bessus and Barsaentes ; but beyondthe Indus the Great King had never pretended to extendhis grasp. There was a patchwork of independent statesalong the borders of the Five Rivers down to the sea andeastward to the desert.Kingdoms and republics vied in makinga turmoil of political divisions.